COUNTRY WEDDING IN A CIDER ORCHARD

April 1st, 2016

There’s a certain romance associated with the idea of a garden wedding. Celebrating your wedding outdoors in a garden, meadow or field seems less commercial than other types of weddings, although to make it special you need a pretty nice garden, any old backyard just won’t do.

The reason I’m so keen on this idea was after a trip to see Elizabeth Redding, a visual artist and events coordinator of H-coo Events. Looking out of the back window at Elizabeth’s farmhouse is the wonderful cider orchard that is used to host weddings. I couldn’t have picked a better day for a visit, the sun was shining and standing outside listening to the birds I was surrounded by the delicate smells of spring, I was in wedding inspiration heaven. This is a perfect spot for a marquee or tipi wedding, with a British summer or marquee feel to it, and although the meadow was empty I could picture the hay bales and summer cocktails.

The setting is perfect and very much a blank canvas to create exactly the wedding that you want – a festival wedding would be ideal. But there’s something else that I loved about this venue – its exclusivity. Elizabeth likes to hold a maximum of eight weddings each you, which means your wedding will actually be a special event. Unlike other venues that sometimes turn out three weddings a weekend, the cider orchard at H-Coo will feel like your own for the duration of your wedding.

That’s a really important point to make about finding a wedding venue. When you’re at a viewing try and get a sense about the place, does the venue care about your wedding or are they simply trying to squeeze in as many weddings each year to improve their bottom line? I understand that venues are running a business but they should still be able to give you the personal touch, it’s not every day that you get hitched. I was at a wedding recently where the next day felt like fleeing a burning building – with a mad rush to vacate the premises before the next wedding party arrived, we were threatened with financial penalties for failing to comply. Sheesh.

Set among the natural surroundings at H-Coo’s base in North Somerset (between Bristol and Weston-Super-Mare) I can imagine that wedding at this venue feels anything but impersonal.